Magic: The Gathering - DotP 2014! Out now!

Anyone picking up the new version, Duels 2013? Drops on Tuesday, for all three systems. I have no idea what the new plane-something mode is (similar to archenemy?), and Encounters is like challenges but more than one turn, with the AI deck fixed. I think there are ten new decks, manual land tapping, that sort of thing. I'm a Duels fan, so I'll pick it up right away. Anyone know if Steam preorders unlock at midnight on the day of release?

Anyone picking up the new version, Duels 2013? Drops on Tuesday, for all three systems. I have no idea what the new plane-something mode is (similar to archenemy?), and Encounters is like challenges but more than one turn, with the AI deck fixed. I think there are ten new decks, manual land tapping, that sort of thing. I'm a Duels fan, so I'll pick it up right away. Anyone know if Steam preorders unlock at midnight on the day of release?

It's looking more like 10am Pacific on Wednesday, according to the Steam store page.

I'm not getting it for myself, but I am getting it for my son (Steam version).

I have no idea what the new plane-something mode is (similar to archenemy?),

Planechase is based on the old style World Enchantments (they were regular enchantments but only one could be in play at a time) that existed back in the early era of Magic. All the players have to abide by the "plane" rules that are in effect but can spend one mana to roll a planar die that can result in

nothinga special plane based super-effectmoving to a different plane.

Subsequent re-rolls that turn cost one more mana.

You can play any kind of magic with planes. The official rules were originally everyone brings their own planar deck (with planes suited to their own cards for maximum benefit) but in practice, everyone just draws from a big stack of all the existing planar cards.

I have no idea what the new plane-something mode is (similar to archenemy?),

Planechase is based on the old style World Enchantments (they were regular enchantments but only one could be in play at a time) that existed back in the early era of Magic. All the players have to abide by the "plane" rules that are in effect but can spend one mana to roll a planar die that can result in

nothinga special plane based super-effectmoving to a different plane.

Subsequent re-rolls that turn cost one more mana.

You can play any kind of magic with planes. The official rules were originally everyone brings their own planar deck (with planes suited to their own cards for maximum benefit) but in practice, everyone just draws from a big stack of all the existing planar cards.

I'm definitely getting it. DotP is a great deal. I've learned a ton playing it and you get a huge variety. There are flaws, sure, but the package is awesome overall.

I quite agree - the flaws are very easy to look past considering it's an excellent amount of content for $10. I also get very addicted to the progression system and card unlocking. I LOVED that way, way back with some really early MTG game...no idea the name of it, but you had a character and wandered around the map fighting creatures to unlock cards...yeah that mechanic has stuck!

The way they set up the story is pretty cool: start out in shandalar, move on to innistrad, various goldfish type challenges, it really makes the whole feel more than the sum of its parts.

I like the glowing ring instead of the "red zone" on the battlefield, takes up less space. OTOH, it's rendered with aliasing built in on the PC at least, making the table a bit fugly. The video clips still spaz the fuck out on Crossfire though (no vsync and each card seems to be tearing separately).

Player training most likely. It's easier for a new player to learn about the game/mana usage with only one color, and they won't get hung up on which color to use with a multi-color deck. Of course the same thing could be achieved just by having the first few unlocked decks be single color. I also don't know how many new players they'd expect to get with the third iteration of the game.

I can't help but think that this series would have been far better served following the Rock Band model. Put the engine out with the first iteration of the game and as they add decks/concepts/features sell them as expansions. The model they used with DotP1 (don't know about 2 as I haven't played it) was expansions were just more decks to use with the same rules. It kind of sucks that in order to play a deck from any given game you have to launch that game, and there's no way to use a deck from DotP1 against a deck from DotP2. Oh well, the fact that DotP exists has meant that I get to play Magic again (I was never a fan of buying the cards, even though I loved collecting them, and I sucked at deck building).

What really gets me is that I won't be able to try out the decks added in DotP expansion 3 without essentially rebuying the first two expansions. I can understand combining them after the release of 2012 for ease of sale to newcomers, but pulling the individual items off the store?

Jace's deck is insanely fun, both to play and to play against. Holy shit it does ramp up the pace of the game.

Still working my way through the campaign, the decks seem more interesting than 2012 so far. They seem a bit more versatile than the 1 deck = 1 strict theme that defined most of the 2012 decks. The lack of multi-colour is a bit sad; I'm not really sure why they went that way.

Loving 2013. The decks are all great. The new cycle of legends have allowed all the monocolor decks to gain new focus. Garruk is all beatings, while Yeva is wily green. Chandra is burn and phoenixes, Krenko is hasty goblins. The decks are honed and more fun.

Loving 2013. The decks are all great. The new cycle of legends have allowed all the monocolor decks to gain new focus. Garruk is all beatings, while Yeva is wily green. Chandra is burn and phoenixes, Krenko is hasty goblins. The decks are honed and more fun.

Agreed - all the decks seem really fun, and powerful in their own way. KRENKO is awesome. Was about to lose a 2HG game, then got Krenko and 36 goblins, and attacked with an 82/3 Piledriver as well

Has deck customization been improved at all? Also, the unlock cards have they gotten better? It seemed in the 2012 version most were direct upgrades of cards in the deck. So if your deck had a 2/2 for 3 mana, the unlock card would be a 2/2 for 3 mana with an ability.

Also, is this game pretty much luck of the draw wins? In the last one I felt like I was never outplayed as much as I was out drawn. (if that makes sense)

Has deck customization been improved at all? Also, the unlock cards have they gotten better? It seemed in the 2012 version most were direct upgrades of cards in the deck. So if your deck had a 2/2 for 3 mana, the unlock card would be a 2/2 for 3 mana with an ability.

Also, is this game pretty much luck of the draw wins? In the last one I felt like I was never outplayed as much as I was out drawn. (if that makes sense)

There's ~40 base cards in each deck, and 30 unlocks. There are some upgrades in the unlocks, but most of them are duplicates of existing cards in the deck. It gives you a lot more flexibility in choosing which aspect of the deck you want to focus on. I haven't played anywhere near enough to have a good feel for each deck, but just from looking at the deck manager I think quite a few decks would have multiple viable builds.

Luck certainly plays a large role, but good deck construction and play helps to mitigate luck. It's like poker; on the surface it's largely luck driven, but over a number of games the better player will usually come out ahead.

Having a blast with the game so far. Garruk's huge creatures and Krenko's massive goblin army are my favorite decks at this point. I've tried a few of the other decks situationally, to beat encounters, and they seem really solid too. I've heard Jace's mill deck takes some unlocking to make it formidable, but I like the mill concept. Planechase has been fun, albeit very chaotic. I've gotten pretty frustrated sometimes, but have somehow managed to win each Planechase match so far. I think a lot of it is luck, sort of like Archenemy.

Has deck customization been improved at all? Also, the unlock cards have they gotten better? It seemed in the 2012 version most were direct upgrades of cards in the deck. So if your deck had a 2/2 for 3 mana, the unlock card would be a 2/2 for 3 mana with an ability.

Also, is this game pretty much luck of the draw wins? In the last one I felt like I was never outplayed as much as I was out drawn. (if that makes sense)

There's ~40 base cards in each deck, and 30 unlocks. There are some upgrades in the unlocks, but most of them are duplicates of existing cards in the deck. It gives you a lot more flexibility in choosing which aspect of the deck you want to focus on. I haven't played anywhere near enough to have a good feel for each deck, but just from looking at the deck manager I think quite a few decks would have multiple viable builds.

Luck certainly plays a large role, but good deck construction and play helps to mitigate luck. It's like poker; on the surface it's largely luck driven, but over a number of games the better player will usually come out ahead.

Nice! So there is enough unlocks to really focus on one aspect of a deck. That is a BIG improvement.

I'm wondering if most people play single player to unlock all the cards in a deck before taking it online. I much prefer playing real people, but if I'm screwing myself over by not having cards unlocked then I guess I should stay offline. Thoughts? Can a 2/30 unlocked deck beat a 25/30 or 30/30 unlocked deck with any regularity? Or is it hopeless?

Man, I haven't managed to beat the first Planechase. I got close by using the Lion-Guy deck, but... Luck is always going to be a bigger part of PC I guess. I used my key from 2012 to fully unlocked Jace, and it's neat, but sometimes putting everything in their graveyard works in their favor. One encounter is full of bloodghasts, so the NPC would just take them all out of ther GY and murder me.

I haven't decided what deck I like the most, but I'll need to unlock one to beat Bolas though. I had a very hard time trying with Jace.

Cadmus the Red: Sure, you'll win a fair share of games. I don't think the power delta between fully unlocked and locked decks is as large as 2012.

More importantly (and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not), it feels like certain decks have extremely favourable and unfavourable matchups. For example, if you're playing a hard aggro or burn deck like Chandra or Grenko, you're most likely going to destroy Jace (who in turn dominates more passive control decks like Liliana or Talrand).

I guess that's better than 2012 where there were decks that were just flat out OP or flat out awful.

Cadmus the Red: Sure, you'll win a fair share of games. I don't think the power delta between fully unlocked and locked decks is as large as 2012.

More importantly (and I'm not sure if this is a good thing or not), it feels like certain decks have extremely favourable and unfavourable matchups. For example, if you're playing a hard aggro or burn deck like Chandra or Grenko, you're most likely going to destroy Jace (who in turn dominates more passive control decks like Liliana or Talrand).

I guess that's better than 2012 where there were decks that were just flat out OP or flat out awful.

Thanks. I think you're right - 2013 deck unlocks are more about letting you take the deck in a certain direction; 2012 was usually about more powerful cards. And in 2012 you're exactly right, a few decks were clear multiplayer choices while others were garbage.

@ Wwen: I used the Jace deck against Bolas and annihilated him. Jace is very good against anything that's not goblins or soldiers, I'm finding.

I know they're trying to make it more flashy, and the ravnica splash screens look really cool, but jesus, I get like 1 frame every 2 second on my netbook now. .5 FPS! I'd appeciate a low-tech mode where all the splashes were jpgs.

Maybe I'm just not using the right cards. I had a hard time deciding what to swap out. Maybe because I unlocked it with the key instead of having to play the deck to unlock everything.

I took out almost all the high (5+) cost cards, all the big creatures, both sets of meh middle creatures (the tap to draw and discard guys). Big focus on fast play, quick control, hedron crab wins.

Yeah, I think this is the right way to play Jace. He has two win conditions;

a) Get some early mill, then destroy them with your 5/5 flyers.b) Get that crazy draw / mill combo going, and freeze the board with control

I agree that the "tap to mill" and "tap to draw" creatures aren't that useful. If you want to win a mill victory then you need those early Mines, and that means you'll always have a full hand to burn your mana on. 1/4 non-flyer isn't a good enough defender to justify his spot in the deck IMO. Same with the late-game creatures; sure, maybe they can stall for another turn or two, but another control spell could do that too and is useful all game.

I haven't played too much of Yeva, but I think it suffers a similar problem to Chandra; the theme and design is great, but most of the individual cards just aren't very strong. Chandra gets away with it because burning weenies is incredibly strong in DotP2013.

Compare that to say Garruk, where almost every single creature in the deck is top tier. It's not a very clever deck, but the raw power is obscene.

I tried again after moving some card in/out and won without even taking damage. I actaully got to make use of the cogwheel thing, where you tap to put counters on it then you can tap to have them graveyard that many cards. The card that makes them discard half their library is pretty cool, but it seems by the time I had enough mana to cast it, they're already down to 20 cards in the deck.

I think I'll work on the goblin deck next, it's less fun playing if I'm not unlocking anything as I go. There are some cool combinations in here, but I'll have to unlock a bit before I can focus the deck in anyway.